When generously advising left and right on issues related to Latvian language policy and citizenship, the United Nations and the Council of Europe ignore the fact that Latvia has historically had a large group of people who do not want to speak Latvian, do not want to join Latvian society, do not want Latvian citizenship because Russia's pension and comrade Putin's speeches on May 9 are more important than these benefits.
The exact number of Latvia's population, national composition, nationality and other important data will become known after this year's census. According to the data of the Official Statistics Portal of Latvia, at the beginning of 2020, there were 1,907,661 inhabitants in Latvia. So 1.9 million. From them:
Citizens of Latvia: 1,647,270 or 86.3%
Non-citizens of Latvia: 197,888 or 10.4%
Other citizenship: 62,517 or 3.3%.
In the Population Register of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (OCMA), the numbers are always higher, and there the population still exceeds two million. However, the proportion of nationality is about the same.
Thirty years after regaining independence, one-tenth of Latvia's population does not want to become Latvian citizens, and more than 52 thousand of the citizens of other countries permanently residing here are Russian citizens. The pension paid by Russia is the most common reason for this choice. In turn, the choice of the only citizen of the USSR found in the population register can be explained as a curiosity or personal drama. But the central issue is a large number of non-citizens. Why do so many people want to enjoy the benefits of the Latvian state, the European living environment and the relatively high level of prosperity, but do not want to take civic responsibility for their country - including participating in elections. Instead, this section of society and the pro-Kremlin political wing that represents it systematically complain about the poor state of things to various international organizations, after which the Latvian state receives absurd advice from the UN, the Council of Europe and the OSCE. To grant the right to vote to non-citizens, to expand the existing bilingualism in education even more widely, to write street and place names in two languages, to waive the labor market requirement to know the state language. To speak Russian in public institutions. These incompetent and harmful recommendations have been described by Neatkarīgā in several publications. The last of them: "The Council of Europe is nagging us about bilingualism."
International organizations speak out for the protection of the oppressed Russian minority but are not even interested in the reasons why this minority is so reluctant to use the generous offer of the Latvian state to acquire citizenship through naturalization.
The fact that Latvia provides an opportunity for non-citizens to become citizens of Latvia and the European Union, the Council of Europe has noticed and also noted in its resolution:
"Latvia continued to make efforts to reduce the number of “non-citizens” residing in Latvia on a permanent basis. A parent can register a child born in Latvia as a citizen of Latvia. The fees for the naturalisation application have been reduced for a number of categories of persons belonging to socially vulnerable groups. Furthermore, when applying for citizenship of Latvia, persons who have received primary education in the Latvian language are not required to take the test on fluency in the Latvian language and the test on knowledge of the constitution and the basics of the history and culture of Latvia. Persons over 65 years of age do not need to take the writing skills test in the Latvian language. As a consequence, the number of “non-citizens” residing in Latvia on a permanent basis has been diminishing."
In recent years, the pace of naturalization in the country has slowed down, which shows that most people who wanted to become Latvian citizens have received citizenship. The last year when the number of inhabitants who acquired Latvian citizenship by naturalization exceeded one thousand was 2013. After that, they were only in hundreds, but this year, probably due to the pandemic, the number of naturalized new citizens is especially small. So far, only 27 people have received citizenship. Since the introduction of the naturalization procedure, a total of 147,920 persons have received Latvian citizenship through the naturalization procedure. The largest number was in 2006 -16,439 people. There have also been several scandals, revealing that in some cases the citizenship has simply been bought, bypassing the tests. There are also deputies in local governments who hardly speak Latvian, but are citizens.
However, what is the deal with the remaining 10% of people living in Latvia who choose to officially retain non-citizen status? The Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs systematically researches and measures this issue in the survey “Attitudes of non-citizens of Latvia towards the acquisition of Latvian citizenship”.
Here are the answers from the study published in 2020 to the question: “Why are you not applying for Latvian citizenship?”:
23% doubt whether they will be able to pass naturalization exams;
17% believe that Latvian citizenship is granted automatically;
15% hope that additional easing of requirements will be introduced in the naturalization process;
13% of non-citizens are satisfied with their status;
12% point out that non-citizen status makes it easier to travel to Russia;
10% of surveyed non-citizens do not have time for naturalization;
5% do not want to naturalize;
5% indicate another reason, for example, “age”, “disability”, “cannot prove residence in Latvia”, “parental or maternity leave”.
The OCMA draws several conclusions from these and other answers obtained in the study.
The survey data show that the majority of non-citizens do not plan to acquire Latvian citizenship in the future. Compared to the previous survey conducted by the OCMA, the desire of non-citizens to naturalize in the near future has decreased. The proportion of non-citizens who are not interested in information on citizenship has increased. According to self-assessment, only 23% of non-citizens know the state language at a conversational level. The number of people who know only a few words and do not use the language has increased.
These are undeniably negative trends. The government must try to prevent them. However, the situation cannot be improved with the irresponsible advice of the Council of Europe, the UN, UNESCO and other overseas organizations.
Russian-language street signs and bilingualism in public administration will only further divide society. Those who lived in the Soviet occupation regime have already experienced it.
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